Design and Robots for Learning in Virtual Worlds

摘要

The meme of the physical university is changing and moving swiftly, due mostly to virtual technological developments, towards the “multi-versity” where Higher Education Institutes will exist in both the real world and a virtual space: a term this chapter names “augmented education.” Augmented education requires innovation in technology that can deliver new ways of learning. Therefore, virtual worlds that support effective experiential learning need to be designed beyond merely established real world replication. The concern for researchers and educational practitioners is the need to provide evidence-based frameworks for tasks of measurable complexity that result in verifiable learning in an augmented virtual world. In an attempt to develop a framework for science education this chapter summarizes the theoretical and technical progress of research in the iterative, leaner centered design of virtual tools and associated tasks for evidencing the processes of learning (witnessed as measurements of six cognitive processes and four knowledge dimensions) of participants communicating the programming of LEGO robots within a virtual world.